Tag Archives: aston-martin

On the Road in Aston’s Flagship V-12 Convertible

The Vanquish Volante complements the coupe in driving dynamics, but adds wind in the driver’s hair

The price for the 2026 Vanquish Volante convertible was kind of an afterthought during the presentation at Aston Martin’s New York Q showroom July 15, but it certainly woke up the assembled media—$483,000 plus $5,000 destination. It will be on sale in early 2026.

Supercar buyers pay for the stats, and the very pretty new flagship V-12 convertible certainly has them—a top speed of 214 miles per hour, zero to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds, an all-new in-house twin-turbo 5.2-liter V-12 engine offering 824 brake horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque. The company has some superlatives to offer: The Vanquish Volante is “the world’s most powerful front-engine convertible” and “the fastest, most powerful, open top series production Aston Martin to date.”

According to Simon Newton, director of vehicle performance at Aston Martin Lagonda, the new Vanquish Volante (which was developed alongside the similarly powered Vanquish coupe in the lineup) is 15 percent more powerful than its predecessor, the DBS Volante, and offers 11 percent more torque. The power of the new V-12 (developed without Mercedes/AMG input) reaches the ground through an eight-speed ZF gearbox with paddle shifters and five drive modes, GT, Sport, Sport+, Wet and Individual.

Carbon ceramic brakes are standard on the Vanquish Volante, and help with weight reduction. They should be powerful, but on the highway stopping distances seemed longer than expected.  

The aim in developing the convertible, Newton said, was “to ensure that the driving experience was in no way diluted—it had to drive just like the coupe.” And that included adding lateral stiffness to the bonded aluminum structure, which is complemented by carbon-fiber body panels. The structural stiffness is the same for the open or closed Vanquish. The convertible weighs 4,144 pounds, just 200 more than the coupe.

The Vanquish Volante is also both bigger and wider than the DBS, with an especially wide grin from that traditional Aston DB-style shark grille (cue as far back as the DBR1 racer of 1956). Newton emphasized that a great deal of engineering went into getting the soft top to fold flat, without an unsightly hump on the rear deck. The downside is that the folded top eats into trunk space.

The top goes down in 14 seconds and closes in 16. With the top up, rear vision isn’t all it could be—the rear window is small. The car’s low-profile top makes it look like headroom would be an issue, but this did not prove to be the case on the road. It’s an attractive car, top up or down.

Inside the Volante feels roomy, with a very similar interior layout to the Vanquish coupe. The driver looks at a digital 10.25-inch display, which is complemented by a similarly sized center-stack touchscreen. Bowers & Wilkins does the audio, with 15 speakers. Sports seats are standard, but carbon-fiber performance variants are available (though these are certainly not race cars). A fair amount of customization is, of course, available—and saddle leather fitted luggage sets can be added. Asked about options, Morgan Theys Carrasco, the company’s Americas spokeswoman, said the possibilities are practically unlimited. Because of this, the one you buy may pencil out at more than the aforementioned $483,000. Some of the test cars had bottom lines above $600,000.

Driving a powerful more-than-$400,000 Sage Green sports car on the streets of New York is always an adventure. Other supercars have proven a handful in such situations but the Volante is docile at low speeds. Once the George Washington Bridge was crossed and the Palisades Parkway entered in New Jersey, the car came into its own, offering effortless surges of power while remaining surprisingly quiet and squeak-free in GT mode. Wind noise wasn’t bad with the top down, either. Switching up to Sport and Sport+ increased the urgency of the engine note and stiffened the suspension.

Open roads gave an opportunity to open the car up, and it remained eager to any speed that was desired. The best thing about driving the Volante was the very direct, precisely weighted steering. The driver soon learns that the most minute adjustments are possible. The suspension was expectedly stiff, making the horrible city roads a bit bouncy, but glass smooth on the rural byways.

The job of a car writer inevitably sounds glamorous, especially when you inform your interlocutor that the day included driving an Aston Martin convertible and eating a gourmet lunch. The appeal is undeniable, causing many to exclaim, “That’s the greatest job in the world!” And maybe it is. It also sounds fairly easy to most people, and they often add, “I could do that job!” And maybe they could. But like telling jokes on stage or conducting an orchestra, it’s harder than it looks. At least I tell myself that.

The Volante was delivered safely back to base, complementing the cleaner example on the showroom floor. The estimate is that 40 percent of Vanquish production will be Volante convertibles.

Theys Carrasco said that CEO Adrian Hallmark is keen on growing Aston Martin as a performance brand and returning the company to profitability by the end of 2025. Part of the strategy is opening new Q outlets around the world, with a new location in Japan and one in London by the end of the year.

The over-1,000-horsepower Valhalla plug-in hybrid supercar (zero to 62 in 2.5 seconds) is coming in the second half of this year, which could help the Aston Martin bottom line. Production is limited to 999 units.

Bonding with the Aston Martin

Cruising the neighborhood in the $324,000 DB12 coupe, a sinuous supercar.

By Jim Motavalli

A thick coating of helicopter seeds from a maple tree couldn’t hide the sinuous lines of the Liquid Crimson Aston Martin DB12, a successful and more aerodynamic updating of the basic Aston shape that’s been extant since the DB2 of 1950 to 1953. It modernizes the DB11 with touches of the DBS.

These cars start at $245,000, but the tester’s options bumped it to $324,700. The DB12 grand tourer debuted in May of 2023, and compared to the DB11 it has bigger grille in the distinctive Aston shape, LED headlights and wider track width. The redesigned interior sports Aston’s ownb infotainment system, which supports wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

The DB12’s four-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine produces a massive 671 horsepower with 590 pound-feet of torque and makes outrageous go-fast noise. The DB11 offered a mere 528 horsepower and 513 pound-feet from the same basic powerplant, with the increase attributable to modifying the camshaft profile, optimizing the compression ratio and deploying bigger turbochargers.  

AM discontinued the 5.2-liter V-12 that was available on the DB11. There’s also a DB12 convertible called the Volante, released just after the coupe, and it can raise or lower its top in 16 seconds or less at speeds up to 31 mph. The DB12 reaches 60 miles per hour in 3.6 seconds, and the Volante in 3.7.

On the road, these figures will not be doubted. The DB12’s acceleration is fearsome and relentless. But driving the car in suburbia can be an exercise in frustration, since there are so few opportunities to really get it excited. Even on the highway the rest of the traffic isn’t moving fast enough. The 12 feels like a caged lion in school zones, and the ride—meant for flat-out cornering—is quite stiff in some modes.

The 12’s chassis is seven percent stiffer, the anti-roll bars have been hardened, and the shocks upgraded. But the driver can choose between GT, Sport, Sport+, Wet and Individual. The first one is the default and the most comfortable in everyday driving. Sport+, that’s for the track.

Boarding the DB12 requires dropping into it, dictated by the low stance. The driver and passenger sit cozily on hand-stitched quilted red leather (via a $15,200 option), with the bolstering needed to stay in place. There’s a back seat (the car is a “2+2”) but it’s for small kids and parcels.

The initial driving position was low, too, but corrected by raising the seat height. The driver looks at a clear digital dash display, which is complemented by a 10.3-inch center screen. The system worked well until it didn’t—the screen froze temporarily. But the $10,000 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins audio sounded excellent, and AM is to be congratulated for providing physical controls (via knurled rollers).

The driver can let the eight-speed automatic transmission do the work, but AM provides a really good paddle-shifting system with near-instantaneous responses. The paddles turn with the wheel, which makes using them a bit awkward during cornering. The $14,400 carbon ceramic brakes, which shed 60 pounds over the standard issue, were massively reassuring.

Supercar fuel economy is usually worse—the DB12 gets 22 mpg on the highway, and 15 in town. But that doesn’t stop these cars from being driven. On a recent trip to Miami, I saw a group of British-registered Aston Martins going all the way back to the DB6 that were on the Mayfair to Miami trip, (see below) arriving at the latter in time for the recent F1 race.

This isn’t likely to be its owners’ only car, and some kind of big SUV will do the family’s heavy lifting. But despite its intent as an international grand tourer, the DB12 is fairly docile for a supercar and reacts predictably. It doesn’t require a driving school degree for a trip to the mall. It attracts attention like nobody’s business, though, so be careful of drivers not concentrating on the road.

Cars imported from Britain were subject to President Trump’s 25 percent import tariffs, but the just-concluded U.S.-U.K. trade deal offers some relief for luxury carmakers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin that don’t have U.S. production. According to the White House, under the new rules, the first 100,000 British vehicles into the U.S. in any year will pay 10 percent, and any after that are subject to 25 percent rates. The latter figure won’t be reached too often—in 2024, U.K. manufacturers sent 102,000 vehicles to America. The big numbers are in cars from Japan, Korea and Europe.